Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Arequipa is big dusty ugly city with surprisingly beautiful center and the best Cheviche (spicy raw seafood dish) we ever had. We came here mainly because of trekking in Colca Canyon. Its a Canyon more than twice deeper than Grand Canyon in Arizona. It should to be one of best treks in south america.. We cant agree with this.. We were actually a bit disappointed...

Saturday, December 26, 2015

From Bolivian part of Lake Titicaca we went to the Peruvian one.. To the city called Puno. The town itself is nice but much more interesting are the islands around. Especially those floating islands.. Puno was also place where we spend our Christmas..

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

This Copacabana is also on the beach but some 3821 meters higher than the one in Rio. It's on the bank of lake Titicaca. It's just about three hours from La Paz. There is a funny moment when they kick you out from bus to a small boat to cross a thin part of lake. When we saw how they transport the bus across lake we were quite happy not to be in the bus.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Another capital of Bolivia. Our room was in 4th floor
without lift. Normally no problem but in a upper part of La Paz some
4000 meters above sea level you can feel each extra step. Its a ugly city but we like it, probably more that Rio..

Sunday, December 20, 2015

After
all the adventures we needed to slow down. Also we wanted to go to
lower altitude and somewhere where is not so dry. Sucre is Bolivian
capital city (even if government is in La Paz, Sucre is a capital
according to constitution). Has a perfect setting between Amazon and mountains, nice climate perfect place to chillout for a while.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

This post is huge. We made few stages of Dakar Rally. Both in Bus and off road car. It was all in between 3600 and 5000 meters above sea level. Hard terrain, amazing landscapes. 4WD adventure. And more than 900 awesome photos. This is our trip to Salar de Uyuni and Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna Natural Reserve. Open, click to some photo and enjoy the gallery.

Monday, December 14, 2015

We
wanted to skip Tupiza in blog. Because of the respect to the person
and also not to scare our parents and friends. But this is a Diary
and to skip the probably the strongest experience from all our
traveling wouldn't be good. So here is the story...

This is just before we found her... What the newspapers called "rescue team"

Thursday, December 10, 2015

We
hitchhike all the way to Pulmamarca. The drivers were very friendly, communicative and curious. Spanish lessons for free. Pulmamarca is known by its seven coloredmountain. Also it should be quite touristy and overpriced
village. We don't know. We bought just fresh bread, avocado and locally made cheese in a small local shop, and two bottle of Argentinian
cidra, awesome apple beer.. We set our tent in wild, so... it wasn't expensive at all.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Asuncion is a capital of Paraguay and same like all Paraguay its more about nice people and traditions than about a sights. Actually a lot of people says that there is nothing to see in Paraguay. There really wasn't many things to take photo of but we had two really nice couchsurfings and we met nice people.

Friday, December 4, 2015

The
boarder crossing to Paraguay was fast and without problems. The Paraguayan officer refuse to give is a tourist card and he also
refused to talk to us. He simply stamped our passport and kicked us
out from office. According to Czech ministry of foreign affair the
tourist card (fine or bribe) might be required when leaving country.
But what to do if police just say strictly NO.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Together
with Niagara (USA/Kanada) and Victoria Falls (Zambia/Zimbabwe) this are the most massive falls in the
world. The Incredible power of nature on boarder between Brazil and Argentina, with Paraguayan boarder just few kilometers away.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

We
skipped Sao Paulo, From what we hear its not city for us. Rio without
the viewpoints. Sure there is a lot on culture and the best bars and
restaurants and parties. but we don't have money for good bars,
restaurants and parties so our another point of interest was Iguazu
Falls. And the best place to spit the 22 hours long bus ride is
Curitiba.

Friday, November 27, 2015

We
can't say that Rio was a disappointment. Probably we just had too big
expectations. Or it's simply because of the weather wasn't same like
on the photos or movies.. For us Rio was kind of normal huge
city. Extremely photogenic and beautiful from viewpoints
but quite ugly and dirty if you walk in the streets.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Its
still some 16 hours by bus to Rio. So it means two nights and place to meke stopover is Vitoria. Vitoria is a capital of Brazilian state of Espirito Santo. Is
a big city but ist not on the tourist map. Well its a normal Brazilian city... Our experience was quite bad on the beginning but we like it a lot in the end.. Almost like everywhere in Brazil... This is not a country for one day visit.. You have to stay or live here to see how good this country it is..

Saturday, November 21, 2015

The
main reason why we did not stay longer in Itacare was that our
another destination was on beach again. Also we were spending for accommodation but in Trancoso we arranged
couchsurfing. The way was again long and tiring. To move just few hundred kilometers we spend all day in buses and bus stations.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The
26 hour long bus trip from Salvador to Rio wouldn't be much fun so we
had to find some nice places to split the way. It wasn't easy, there's
a lot of nice places on the way Barra Grande, different islands, the
specially the state of Bahia is full of beautiful beaches and laid
back beach towns. In the end we decide to make our first stop in
Itacare. Small town, without big hotels and mass tourism. The welcome was pretty bad but later we regret than we stayed just three nights
there.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Someone
told us that there are some mountains good for trekking in Bahia just
next to Salvador. Well Brazil is bigger than Australia so “just
next to” Salvador means overnight bus... But it was worthy. Chapada Diamantina is truly exceptional place.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

The
first colonial capital city of Brasil, the city known for the best
parties, music, African culture (black slaves from colonial times)
capoeira (Brazilian martial art) and the best people. Well its also
a bit known for criminality. We did not plan it but we spend here
almost a week. Two long weekends to be exact. We had an excelent
local guide and thanks to him we experienced everything Salvador is
known for. Except of the criminality.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

We
always just saw those huge white cruise ships parking in some port
but we never even think about them. They are just like exact opposite of backpacking. Rich people getting fat in luxury restaurants.
drinking, having a massages in spa and spending money in
casinos. Traveling from country to country just to take few hours
organized tour around port. Sounds
terribly boring but guess what... We love it and we are already quite intensively looking for some another cruise for the way back..

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Canary Islands, we probably wouldn't have an idea to come to here if our ship to South America wouldn't start from here. But. If we are already here we we took at least week to explore the Grand Canaria Island. Nicknamed as little continent. With all colors of beaches, high mountains and even a desert on area some 50 x 50 km.

Monday, October 19, 2015

We
have 11 days to finish last 310km of the pilgrim. This will be very
different than crossing Pyrenees. This part of Camino will be more about social and cultural experience than about trekking and about nature. The way is incredibly popular and busy. More than 200 000 people made Camino in 2014 !!! And the number is growing thanks to movies and books written about it. Americans, Asians, tourists, pilgrims trekkers or just people who want run away from their regular stressful or boring lives. People with religious reasons starting to be a minority here.

Friday, October 9, 2015

We walked almost 300km but Santiago its still almost 700km. We
need to cheat a bit and skip part of the way.. We did not feel good about it but have ship to catch in about two weeks. Someone told us that we shouldn’t skip historical city
of Burgos. And also Pamplona – the Basque city of bullfighting
sounds like very interesting place to visit. We will cantinue walking the last 310km from another historical city Leon.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The
legendary pilgrim of St. Jacob. You Can walk from your home town in
the other side of Europe, you can go just for a longer weekend the
last 100km or whatever in between. We had a bit more than three weeks
and more than any our spiritual reason our motivation was curiosity
and sightseeing. Well for Gosia it wasn’t first Camino to Santiago.
She made the Portuguese way from Porto before. This time we choose
the southern Camino Frances. From Pau or Oloron to Santiago. So from
the beginning we knew we can’t make it all the way to Santiago. But
we wanted to start in France on this less popular way and cross the
Pyrenees.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

We
met with Gosia on bus stop in center. Michal had sandwiches because
he knows that Gosia is always hungry. We made a pick-nick in front of cathedral and we walked around the city center. It was nice sunny
day, we were happy that we met again and that we are starting new
adventure.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

This summer was special. Gosia spend it in between Holland, Poland and Czech Republic. Holland – working, Poland Family and friends and Czech to visit Michal. Michal was just in Prague in his old job. We does not earned enough money to travel for another year but our boat tickets to Brasil was already booked and three months of not-traveling was more than enough so in the end of September we met again in Bordeaux (the worlds capital of wine).

Yes, Holland, not Poland. Our bank accounts were empty after one year of travelling. Michal stayed in Czech. It was possible for him to come back to previous job but not for Gosia so she went to Holland. Gosia's brother working and lives already more then 5 years in Holland so she decided to go to visit him and also work over there during summer.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

We
bought flight from to Tokyo to Vienna with a 20hour stopover in
United Arabic Emirates. The Etihad was a nice change after all the
budget airlines. Choosing food from menu, plenty of space for legs
nice blankest (still have them J) good
selection of movies and also it was the cheapest way we found. We
prepared tab with all our 21flights with distances and prices. It
will be published soon.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Fuji is a nice looking perfect cone 3776m active
volcano, highest mountain of Japan, Sacred place and one of three
Japanese holly mountains and UNESCO site. Japanese proverb says “He who climbs
Mount Fuji is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a
fool". So, basically.. Its a must.

But what to do if you don't have enough time,
there’s no climbing season yet, mountain is basically closed and thanks to bicycle race
it is not possible to go to the beginning of the track + weather forecast
is sucks, there's still snow and seismic activity is a bit higher last days… Well, what to do now? ..climb anyway..

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Every Czech knows Nagano thanks to 98 Olympics and the Ice Hockey success, but for us it was mainly the gorgeous Snow Monkeys, yes the fantastic and super photogenic Japanese monkeys. And one more
thing made it special… The traditional Japanese hotel, quite
fancy but without beds and with common bathroom..

Monday, June 8, 2015

This was our
first hitch hiking experience in Japan. Okayama was our base for a day trip to
Hiroshima.. Well it wasn’t planed like this but overall we are not good in plans. Hiroshima was a strong experience and one of the busiest days in Japan.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Another
two big Japanese cities. Just next to Osaka those looks small on
map but its again huge modern cities. Kobe we just pass
through but in Himeji we had quite a lot of time to explore not only
Japan's biggest castle. And yes, we were couchsurfing again.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Kyoto
is the Japanese tourist destination number one. Former capital of
the country with uncountable amount of shrines and temples. We
stayed three nights with our extraordinary couchsurfing hosts. We made more awesome photos than in any other place. We seen crowded tourist places but we also found hidden shrines where we were just alone. We glimpse few Geisha and took a lot of photos of people in beautiful kimonos.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Nara
was a Capital of Japan in 8th century. Today it's another
big city. Nara is full of temples, it's known because of deer and what
was also interesting.. We spent a night here in a typical Japanese
sex-hotel..

Monday, June 1, 2015

There is
about the same number of people living in Osaka Metropolitan area
like in all Australia... If you like extreme than the flight from
Cairns to Osaka is the right one.. Osaka has a beautiful castle but
it's mainly a business center. There is so many people, things,
colors, sounds, rush... The first impression is just headache. But
there is much more here..

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Our
another HelpX host lives near Cairns. So we needed to make another 1460 km to reach
Cairns. The bus would cost almost $200 per person and train even much more
so we will hitch hike again. BTW. Hitchhiking is illegal in
Queensland..

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Krystyna who we met in Mullumbimby offered us not only lift to Brisbane, but also accommodation and
dinner with her family. This was the Easter time so we were very
happy to stay in some family with friendly people. On the way to Brisbane we stopped on Gold Coast and we spent few hours on the beach with view to Surfers Paradise – the biggest city on Gold Coast.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

We
landed in Gold Coast airport and first thing we noticed was the wet
tropical air. We started to hitchhike right in front of the airport. It was on highway and in a very urban area, so it took us some
time to go where we wanted. We went straight to our HelpX host in
Mullumbimby.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Our
last week in New Zealand we spent in the very north of North Island
where we stayed doing helpX in a small vineyard. Our
second and last HelpX in NZ was in an beautiful house in Kerikeri. It was just in between the vineyards. Our hosts were
Czech-Kiwi couple so the welcomed us with a Czech beer. There was
enough of very good vine and also quite a lot of work on vineyard.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The
last driver on the way from Wellington took us to a viewpoint with
nice cut grass perfect for our tent. From there we hitched Asian family in caravan who took us to a crossroad in the middle of
nowhere. We walked on a dirt road, few cars just pass us (even if we
were in the middle of desert). So we decide to leave our backpack in
bush next to the road. Later two tourist girls stop to us and take us
to the beginning of the track.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The
ferry from Picton to Wellington isn't cheap, some 50NZD per person, but
it's not just ferry it's also quite pleasant cruise trip. It takes
about three hours and most of the way is through a fjord. So even of
we were unlucky for whales and dolphins there was enough to watch.

I
already promised myself not to used too many superlatives but this
was the most beautifulmagnificent and f***ing awesome beach we ever
seen and not only because of the ULTRA SUPER CUTE BABY SEALS. Simply we
have too many good photos from this one place so we have to make a separate post.